Mae Tomita readies to bowl at Marysville's Strawberry Lanes on Friday, March 29, 2024.
Doug Ramsay photo
For the past 30 years, Mae Tomita has made it her weekly routine to bowl with the Senior League at Strawberry Lanes in Marysville.
Aside from making friends, Mae still enjoys making a strike here and there. For her, any score over 100 satisfies her, nothing under 100.
But for the 102-year-old, bowling has become a family outing. Her daughter Kathryn Wantanabe is in the same league.
According to Wantanabe, Tomita was considering putting her bowling ball away for good last year. But after seeing how much her mother enjoyed bowling in the league, Wantanabe decided to buy a ball and shoes herself, hoping Mae would change her mind.
“I want her to keep doing this to stay mentally and physically active,” Wantanabe explained. “I said, ‘Mom I’m thinking about bowling,’ and it perked her right up.”
A few weeks ago, Tomita shot 176 at Strawberry Lanes. She received a trophy for all her accomplishments in bowling.
“I don’t even remember bowling 176, I wasn’t looking at the numbers, I was only concentrating on throwing the ball,” Tomita said. “I had to change from a 12 pound ball to a 10 pound ball. I don’t have the arm strength I had in my 90s.”
“Us old people, I think we just do it for exercise and friendship,” Tomita said. “You make new friends doing this.”
Tomita hopes that older senior men will come out and join the league. Most of the men, according to her, are “young senior men in their seventies and eighties.”
Most of the team is over 85.
Away from the bowling alley, Tomita enjoys time visiting the Snohomish Senior Center, another regular spot for her.
Mae had been bowling years before returning to Washington. She was born in 1912 in Wapato, Washington and grew up on a farm there. As an American with Japanese heritage, her family was relocated to an internment camp in Idaho along with hundreds of other families due to World War II executive order.
She’s always been in the Pacific Northwest, and spent part of of her life in Oregon.
Mae returned to Washington to be closer to her daughter, living in the Lake Stevens area.
She still does it every week, and last week picked up three spares.
The Senior League plays at Strawberry Lanes on Wednesdays and Friday afternoons.
With additional reporting by photographer Doug Ramsay.
Perris Larson photo
Mae Tomita and daughter Kathyrn Wantanabe smile for a portrait on Friday, March 22 at Strawberry Lanes in Marysville after league bowling that day.
